How to Change all Outbound Links to Nofollow Instantly
If you run a website, chances are that you’ve received requests for companies to place guest posts on your site. This is especially true if you have a decent amount of traffic, like my sister site, Creative Beacon. How it works is that their writers will supply you with a unique post, and embedded in there somewhere will be a link back to their own site, helping to build their page rank and give them some seo power. I figured that this wouldn’t cause too many problems if I did this a few times, over the past few years, they’ve built up. Also, I share resources and interesting designs, and link to the original designers or their site. Since Google just recently changed its algorithm, they are now seeking out those who’ve accepted guest posts on their site, and are penalizing them for allowing these links on their site. The reasoning behind this is that they want their search results to be pure, and don’t want anyone manipulating page rank.
The problem with this is that I am a one man show. I do all of the work for everything I own, all by myself. With Creative Beacon, my site has over 700 posts, and there is absolutely no way that I would ever be able to go back and double check every single link. It just isn’t going to happen. That would take me years to do, on top of all of my other work. So what do you do? I found a plugin that handles all outbound links at the same time. In the video below, I’ll show you how to change all outbound links to nofollow, instantly.
The plugin, Wp External links, is an excellent plugin for handling outbound links. It is stuffed with settings to control every aspect of an outbound link that you’ d want. You can set all outbound links site wide to nofollow. You can also refine it to set all outbound links in just the posts to nofollow. Another awesome aspect is that you can automatically set all outbound links in the comments to nofolllow, too. This is awesome if you want to eliminate spam comments from trying to get you to pass page rank via their comments.
This is a huge time saver, because it would take months to go back and try to change these links yourself. In a matter of seconds you’ve set nofollow links for all outbound links in the comments and in posts, cleaning up your site instantly.
The title of this article is misleading since it almost implies you should change all outbound links to no follow. If everyone did this then link juice would die overnight
I guess the title could use a “how-to” in there so it doesn’t sound like a recommendation. You’re right, and I’d never recommend that practice.
Thanks for the clarification James
I’ve been using Platinum SEO plugin for years, and I always tag my posts with affiliate links as “no-follow.” Recently, Google has hit me with a penalty for not using “no-follow” paid links, and I’m confused since Platinum SEO is supposed to take care of this. Today, I installed the Firefox NoDoFollow Add On, and I discovered that the links I tagged as no-follow are showing up as follow…yikes! I have over 1100 posts, and it would take forever to go through and change the html on every link, so I may just use your plugin and have all my outbound links be no-follow. Will this work if I still have my platinum SEO pack installed and the no-follow option checked on certain posts (yes, the option that doesn’t seem to be working)? I also have a plugin installed called Blogroll No-Follow to take care of the links in my sidebar widgets. Thanks in advance for helping a confused and frustrated blogger.